Where will Meyer end up next year?

November 23, 2011

He'll be a Buckeye

Teddy Greenstein

Chicago Tribune

Not since shrimp met cocktail sauce has there been a combination better than Urban Meyer and Ohio State. He will return to Columbus to take the job, assuming his health remains strong, and the timing could not be better.

Luke Fickell needs a lifeline, and the Buckeyes program needs an experienced hand who can handle the demands of 10-plus win seasons. Ohio State is also thirsting for a leader who will play by the rules. That's no guarantee he will follow every letter of the law, but he's at least talking the talk.

Meyer also loves talking about his Ohio roots. If and when he gets the job, the city of Ashtabula will be immortalized.

Those who know Urban Meyer closely insist he will coach again. Ohio State has yet to announce anything, but it seems at this point that there's too much smoke for there not to be fire.

That the Buckeyes' job came open less than a year after Meyer left Florida is not what he expected, but it will be an opportunity he can't pass up. As it is, his current employer (ESPN) has reported that Meyer has spoken with OSU officials and there's "mutual interest." Meyer has left himself wiggle room.

ESPN has relegated him to its Bristol studio this week, so there's reason to believe something's in the works. Meyer's broadcast team will still be calling a game on Saturday. That matchup? Ohio State at Michigan.

The hope here is that Urban Meyer simply gets back on the field again and it can be any field — as long as he's gone from ESPN. The idol-worship there was intense while he was coaching at Florida, but now? We digress.

He'll probably end up at Ohio State. He's an Ohio native, a Cincinnati alum who coached the receivers and tight ends at Ohio State in the mid-'80s. Ohio State is a program that needs a top-flight coach and Meyer is all of that, winning 84 percent of his games through 2009.

Surprisingly, Meyer doesn't bring much to the table as an analyst, so he should go back to doing something he's good at — coaching.